The following background description constitutes a description of the background to the present invention, and thus need not necessarily constitute prior art.
Batteries are used today in a great number of devices, such as in vehicles, vessels, and in various electronic equipment, such as for example in computers, mobile telephones and toys. Generally, there are batteries in most electrical devices, which at least partly are designed so that they may be used without being connected to a power network. In this application, batteries are described primarily in their application for vehicles. However, they may of course also be used in other applications for vessels and various other electronic equipment which comprises batteries.
A battery comprises one or several battery cells, which may have a number of different designs and comprise a number of different substances and/or chemical compounds.
As a person skilled in the art well knows, a battery/accumulator is drained when it is used and/or loses charging over time when it is not used. When the battery is drained, substantially reversible transformations of chemical compounds occur within the battery. For example, the electrode materials comprised in the batteries may then be transformed from one chemical compound into another.
The battery/accumulator may be charged again through an external voltage source, for example, a generator in a vehicle or a vessel, or through a battery charger of some type, connected to the battery's poles. By applying the external voltage to the battery's poles, the poles' chemical composition is restored and the battery is charged again.